Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor apparatus, a method of controlling the same, and a camera.
Description of the Related Art
A solid-state imaging apparatus includes a plurality of pixels, a driving unit configured to drive each pixel, and a readout unit configured to read out a signal from each pixel. For example, a decoder is used in part of the driving unit or the readout unit. The decoder, for example, receives a signal of a predetermined number of bits and decodes the signal. After that, a control signal used to read out a signal from each pixel is generated based on the decoded signal.
A through current is generated in the decoder upon receiving a signal. This is because a plurality of transistors that form the decoder and are used for decoding simultaneously are set in a conductive state, and a current path is formed between the power supply node and the ground node. In addition, if many bits of the input signal to the decoder have changed the signal values, the amount of the through current increases. These may be conspicuous problems because in the above-described example of the solid-state imaging apparatus, the number of bits of the input signal to the decoder becomes large along with an increase in the number of pixels.
Note that although a case of a solid-state imaging apparatus has been exemplified here, the same applies to any other semiconductor apparatuses as well.